


The Light Against the Dark

by perryvic



Category: Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 08:45:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisen of the Wood they called her, most blessed by all of the faces of the Goddess, the brightest most beautiful thread that would ever grace the Weaver’s Loom in all the worlds.  A deiena bearing the Goddesses gifts - and because nothing of the Mother could truly be that simple, it was a double edged gift sharper than a Dalreidan blade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light Against the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalaietha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/gifts).



She would run laughing in the Wood, heart stopping in her wild glory under the Mother’s moon, an adoring Wolf a ghost shadow beside her. She was the heart of the forest, beating with the thrum of magic, the emerald leaves whispering her name as she ran for the sheer joy of feeling the brightness of the air on her skin.

She was all beauty woven together and it was the dazzling light of the stars, the distilled essence of the moons over Calor Diman entrapped lightly in flesh, enough to take the hearts and souls of mortal and immortals at the merest glance.

Lisen of the Wood they called her, most blessed by all of the faces of the Goddess, the brightest most beautiful thread that would ever grace the Weaver’s Loom in all the worlds. A deiena bearing the Goddesses gifts - and because nothing of the Mother could truly be that simple, it was a double edged gift sharper than a Dalreidan blade.

Where Lisen of the Wood danced, men would lose their wits, gods would fawn dazzled by the wonder in front of them. They heard only the beauty of her words not what she was saying, their eyes blinded by the shape of her form to the soul inside.

For all those people smitten with love for her at first sight, they had never looked deeper than the surface, content to focus on that reflection of herself rather than look beyond. Though surrounded by admirers, Lisen felt her soul untouched by true understanding. She felt cold inside, even at the heart of midsummer, and it was of no moment to her for the Wood to call her to break and destroy an intruder into her realm.

 _Pendaren, Pendaren,_ whispered the trees as the dawn pearlised the sky above their leafy heads. _The sacred grove must be cleansed. A mortal man has faced the night of pain, despair and terror, but none shall best the trial of a love willingly given and cruelly used._

 _Break him,_ called the roots in the earth. _Take his heart and crush it to wash the sacrilege with the blood of his love for our Lisen._

 _Break him,_ demanded the unyielding trees. _Let him know despair and betrayal before he dies._

 _Break him,_ laughed the river blood in her veins, _Imposter and fool, but a mere mortal after all!_

“Gladly will I do this,” Lisen bespoke the air itself. “For he has trespassed, he had invited powers into our realm not of our control. The Grove is sacrosanct, a place of birth and death and I will bring him to his destiny within its wood-twined walls.”

The beauty of shimmering ice and snow drew around her, cold and gasping in its intensity, every movement a glitter and glimmer of light on her now fair chosen hair. She was the beauty of diamond, sharp, uncompromising and brilliant as she stepped into the most sacred heart of the Wood. She waited for the gift of a heart and soul of a mere mortal man, as he rose from the battle scarred ground, his eyes upon her breath-taking visage.

She had seen many more fair of face, she had seen those of greater strength and warriors form. His temples were touched with grey against a tangled brown, and his robes were mud and blood stained from a night of dark ordeals. There was nothing to compare to anything that she might feel moved to spare save...

His eyes of an autumn sky blue were filled with the rumbling power of the God, lightning in their quick bright depths. Even then Lisen believed that one with the power of the God would kneel before her. Did not the Wolf-lord follow her with slavish adoration? Was not Flidais enraptured of her presence and indulged her whims?

But he did not kneel. He was not struck dumb with her beauty or lose his wits. Instead he stood and bowed with an injured courtesy that astonished her more than the most extravagant action of devotion.

“Forgive me my Lady,” he spoke to her without tongue-tied nerves or even a tone, save that of fatigue, in his voice. “I did not hear your arrival; I am remiss in my greeting.”

No doubt it would be her voice that swayed him. “You have strayed into the sacred Grove,” she spoke to him coldly.

“No Lady, I did not stray. My visit here was filled with direct purpose,” The man replied and she blinked in sheer surprise. He had contradicted her and not even those of the andain had done such a thing.

“This is not your place mortal,” she said with a flicker of uncertainty. “This place is mine. Mine to command.” Her strength and power drew the earth together, called forth the green plants to grow and bind the churned ground until wildness had reclaimed the Grove.

“Your pardon is sought,” he said with a faint quirk of a smile. “May I enquire your name my Lady?”

“I am Lisen of the Wood, I am the spirit of this place and you are a mere mortal!”

“I am Amairgen, Advisor to High King Conary once of Paras Derval.” He reached to lean on something, but his staff was shards beside him. She started forward, unthinking to help him and then withdrew, confused. This was not the way her experience taught her the story should be woven. Amairgen should be speechless, struck dumb by her beauty, slavish in his attention and yet here he spoke to her as if her beauty was nothing. And something unfurled in her cold wild heart, a strange, wonderful seed of curiosity and longing.

“Do you not find me fair?” she asked suddenly. Amairgen stood and looked at her in silence, his eyes of blue finding her own as she let beauty envelope her in different ways; she was the dark sensuous beauty of Cathal, the ebony eroticism of Eridu, the flaxen gold of Brennin and still that gaze did not waver, the man with the God touched eyes.

“Lady Lisen of the Wood, tales of your beauty are a shadow of the real thing,” Amairgen said softly. “But I see now the truth of things, I see with the eyes of the god and the skylore is mine. I see that the beauty is indeed a shadow, a concealment for a woman who has not been allowed to be more than a perfect reflection of a man’s wants and needs, and not her own.”

She gasped, the words striking as a stinging dart of truth.

“Are you not more my Lady?” His words were quiet but heavy upon her whirling mind. “Inside that gilded cage?”

“You presume much Amairgen. I could strike you down!” she cried out, fearful of these new thoughts as she raised a hand to call upon the powers around her.

“Then do so.” He said the words as a command, steel in his voice. “Strike, and do not stay the blow. For all my hard won knowledge wins me nothing, for it requires someone else to bear the cost and I will never compel someone to suffer for me. But will you always then wonder about the man who talked to you as a person not as a goddess; who respected you, rather than worshipped you; who saw your mind and recognised a yearning for freedom and action that matched his own? I sought the skylore so I would not be fettered by the demands of the Priestesses of Dana, only to find its cost is in irony a binding fate. I could never force that fate upon anyone.”

It intrigued her, for seldom did anyone talk to her of more than the wonder of her smile, the precious glitter of her eyes. She lowered her hand, curiosity a thirst that had been un-slaked for too long. “Tell me of the skylore,” she said, unable to be convincing in a command and the words gentled to become a request. “Tell me why you stand in the Sacred Grove with the lightning of the God in your eyes. Tell me of why and how.”

He smiled at her and sat down, slowly and stiffly onto the verdant ground within the heart of Pendaren wood and began to speak to her. He spoke of the binding choking power of the Priestesses of the Mother. How there were those who felt the magic stir under their skins, possibilities at their fingertips always held back. How he had felt like a singer whose voice was silenced or an artist who was forbidden colour and he had read the lore and sought knowledge of a way to free the force with in him.

Lisen was drawn in, drawn into questions, and she wanted to know more, to know everything. She wrapped time around them both, so she could learn more and ever more. This was the wakening of mind rather than instinct, this was her own silenced voice. It came to her that she was not so different, chained by her own nature and beauty. She understood when he spoke of the warriors’ path of the mind, the sacrifices that knowledge demanded. The disciplines, the art, the dance of runes and the thrill of discovery and comprehension. She understood and craved the ability to create, and change, that was after all a part of her nature, and she felt it begin the change within her.

She did not want this to end, and so it did not.

She listened and then the questions began, endlessly flowing one leading to another and he answered them patiently, with humour, with emotion when she asked of the darkest things, but never with a lie. His truth was wry, brilliant and as uncompromising with himself as it was with others and he offered it to her without reservation. She began to feel something unfamiliar, something strange. It came to her that she was feeling the seeds of respect beginning to grow and twine their way around her heart.

He did not merely teach her, he learned from her; when she spoke, he listened to her words, she thought new ideas and it was intoxicating. He was not blinded by her beauty, and they talked, spinning ideas of wondrous things that could be done with this new skylore, the creations that could change the world, could save the world. He spoke to her of the outside world beyond her whispering leaves and the horror it faced and she listened rapt to tales of the striving of mortal men against the darkest of gods. Before it had not troubled her for none had dared touch her beloved forest, but the storm lay on the horizon and she could feel now she thought to listen, the call of the Summer Tree far away, feeling thunder deep in the earth.

And it came to her then in all the words that it was not enough to merely be a bright thread in the Weavers loom, but that she was to become a pattern, something more. Pendaren would fall; maybe not now, or in the lifetime of men, but should Sathain go unanswered then it would be corrupted or destroyed. She understood that more clearly perhaps than Amairgen himself for she was deiena, protector of the wood, tied in all the balances to the grand slow cycles of nature.

In that endless day, a lifetime of knowing and curiosity, Lisen found her pattern in the Loom. Amairgen was truth to her beauty and they blossomed in being together, in hearts and mind. As the sunset drew closer, she turned to Amairgen and smiled. He had given the knowledge but did not ask the price. The runes he had paid so dearly for, he had offered to her freely. The truth of his heart he had given as a gift, a sacrifice of trust to her more precious than love-struck words and she was determined not merely to accept her fate but to embrace it. For her old life was shown to be empty of purpose and meaning in her newly enlightened eyes and she yearned to change things, to grow and have more meaning than just a beautiful existence.

His face had become dear to her, in the way truth could draw the beauty of the soul to the surface to dance in smiling eyes. She could not know that the feeling was love, not then for she had never felt it before. All Lisen of the Wood knew was that her beauty was now not all of her but a part, and she could not bear the thought of losing all that Amairgen had given her. Or Amairgen himself.

“You have taught me the skylore,” she said taking his hand, though he looked at her in faint surprise. “The knowledge is powerful, wonderfully strange but I cannot use it.”

“Alas, Lady Lisen, this is the paradox. Magic has its roots in sacrifice, in energy and power. There is a cost always and without a source, there is no power to implement the knowledge,” Amairgen said heavily. “You would not be able to become a Mage without a source.”

“Then our course is clear,” Lisen said in a clear ringing voice. “We shall become Mage and Source.”  
Amairgen paused and blinked at her, the voice robbed from his mouth by astonishment. “You want me to become your Source?”

Laughter was surprised from Lisen’s mouth, a bubbling uncontrollable humour as the final bonds of love settled into her heart unawares. It had occurred to her, to be the one that wielded power, not giving strength, but her sharp mind had followed the thought further. “No, I propose I am your Source Amairgen once of Paras Derval.”

“But... you are an Immortal, you cannot be bound to freely to me...” Amairgen protested weakly.  
“For all the wisdom of the God you have learned, you have not realised this?” Lisen responded. “The Source is just that, the Source of the power. What can be done begins and ends there, with them, they have the control. Do you believe I would be subordinate? I do not intend to be so. You are strong Amairgen but your strength would not be sufficient for the changes and wonders we will need. Mine is.”

She had the strength of the greatest oaks gripping the earth, the rivers carving out their beds, of new life finding a way to survive through the harshness of winter and the heat of summer. She would be the Source for she trusted Amairgen to follow what they both desired for his thought would be of her wishes every time he spent that strength.

He argued of course, she had not expected anything else. Amairgen, whom she had known for barely a day and forever in that day, had suffered himself for knowledge for the very reason he did not want others to suffer for him. But she was resolute and relished the chance to persuade, argue and cajole where once she had only ever experienced acquiescence to her whims.

So it was, under the blazing colours of the setting sun, in the twilight between day and night, they shed their clothes and stood naked of all save their own truths. They lay in each other’s arms and whispered the sacred words, and drew the runes slowly and languidly on each other’s skins, each touch an igniting fire of power. Lightning crackled between their bodies, binding them heartbeat to heartbeat as they were bathed in the rich hazy gold of last sunlight and the clean silver of the full moon.

There was nothing about him that she did not know. In the binding, it was he who sacrificed and that was as it should be. It was a complex weaving of soul reaching to soul, all his life open to her in that instant, all the times he had been less than noble, or petty and all the moments of grace and love. They were hers, they were hers for ever, the moments of his life hers to treasure and protect. Who could not love, knowing someone so completely? Understanding their every decision, feeling their very self? Theirs was a union of all things, bodies entwined within the mantle of her hair, souls weaving a pattern in harmony that could not be severed by anything but death. They bonded together under the blessing light of the moon, the glittering diamonds of the watching stars, through the joyous lustre of dawn and through into daylight.

And Amairgen was hers more completely than any of the love-struck fools who worshipped the ground she walked on. She watched him as he slept, the animation of his face stilled in slumber, the lines smoothed away by joy and she was moved by an unspeakable need to show her love in a sacred secret way. So it was that Lisen of the Wood, queen of deieinas, felt the river blood in her veins and found within her the very seed of her tree soul as she reached inside of her own body and drew forth a gleaming rib of living wood freely given. Slender and beautiful, swirling with her essence, Lisen drew forth from within herself a white soul branch that she shaped with her own hands into a mages staff. Always would it be with him, and therefore so would she even if events should contrive to bear them apart.

It was a pure gift, and never before had she been so purely beautiful as she was in that moment of selflessness.

When Amairgen woke it was to a lovers eyes, a life nevermore alone and a purpose that seemed clear to them both and a path that led away from the sacred grove.

“Every mage shall have a staff,” Lisen declared proffering the gleaming white branch to him and he took it feeling something wonderful stir beneath the surface. It was like her heartbeat under his palm, a thrum of magic caressing his fingers. “I have found this for you and it is the very heart of the forest.”

He could feel the truth in that and was humbled by it. “It is a gift that is brightly woven,” he murmured. “With it and each other we shall change the world.”

“Then let us leave this place, and begin at once,” she said eagerly and as they walked from the heart of Pendaren, the very trees wept to see her leave, and groaned even though there was no wind to stir their branches. She soothed them with her touch, promising that she would return, she would always return for how could she not? She was still its very heart.

The world was strange and wonderful to her though she had seen much of it before, she had not been a part of it. It had a new texture and riches’ now she felt it truly belonged to her. Kings and leaders bowed to her, first for her beauty and then for her knowledge. Together Amairgen and her wove the skylore together, taught others that they might stand against the dark. They argued, fought, loved, and learned together. Their threads were coloured by heroism as Lisen became determined that she would not merely be a deiena or even merely a Mage and Source locked away with their arcane knowledge. They were world-changers, they were fighters and the miracles and marvels they wrought together surpassed even those first wild dreams. They were the beating heart of the War against the Dark and a new power to break the stalemate of endless struggle and strife making hope shine forth where they made their stand.

When Lisen and Amairgen stood alone against an invading force of svart alfar, that stood to penetrate to the very heart of Daniloth through treachery and deceit, it was a deed unrivalled. Lisen sourced the lightning and fire of the God, feeling it boil through her with the heart beat of the sun until she blazed with it for all it erupted in coruscating death from Amairgen’s staff. They were children of the storm that day, the sole light in a roiling mass of dark enemies and at the end of the battle death surrounded them both. She lay, feeling light and scoured of all strength in Amairgen’s bleeding arms as the lios alfar found them there, amazed at what they had done. Ra-Termaine held them both and wept for the valour of their deed as they were welcomed even into the very heart of the land of the lios alfar.

“Truly, there has never been such a Light against the Dark,” Ra-Termaine said of them both, but it was Amairgen who stood and saw his love through the eyes of another. Her beauty was more now as the truth of her soul grew to match her outward form. She was the strength of the earth, married with the sky. She had more courage than the most hardened warrior, and did not flinch from any action she knew to be right. Her fire, her conviction her determination lay at the heart of things and he drew not just his mage strength from that but the very direction of his heart and soul. And so Amairgen crafted with all the knowledge and skill of his long life, and using the magic’s of the lios alfar who whispered subtle layers of enchantment into golden precious metal for the gift he was making, he created a wonder. A Circlet created with love that reflected the brightness of the soul-thread on the Weavers Loom and with that soul-light could bring change where it was sorely needed.

“The Light against the Dark,” Ra-Termaine bespoke him echoing his words from before as they beheld it together, finished at last. “Friend Amairgen, it is a wondrous thing. Who could not be unchanged by its presence?”

“None. That is the magic of it. “ Amairgen touched it and it gleamed with the shimmering fire of his own brightness. “It shines brightest for those who choose, and choose to be more than what destiny tells us is our only path. We are all threads in the Weavers loom, of different strengths and brightness. But there are moments where a new pattern blooms under the Weavers hands and His breath stills at the fresh wonder of it and He rejoices. My love, my Lisen has chosen most of all to be more than a destiny given to her. For her, the Circlet will be opalescent fire, a glory that will show others what more they can be and draw all they can choose to be to the surface.”

“It is a very great thing,” Ra-Termaine answered in soft words, for it was humbling even for the first among the lios alfar. “When will you give it to her?”

“Before we leave,” Amairgen answered and his heart was heavy within him. “I would not leave, save she wills it so. We are the ones that discovered the Unraveller’s unnatural drawing on Cader Sedat. That isle of the heroic dead, plundered and pillaged, their rest denied to them through the darkest perversion. Who among us would fight Rakoth Maugrim knowing we will then be used as the strength to destroy our beloved families and friends? “

“But she is deiena,” the lios alfar said.

“And the bitter sea would kill her. But only I can work the runes to find that hidden island and I must go,” Amairgen said. “She has found a way to be there as surely as she can, though her body will stay rooted in the land.” The staff that gave him his name was smoothed under his hands and then grasped tightly, for he now knew the truth of that first gift to him many years before in Pendaren. “She wishes most of all to watch for our returning. I would ask a boon of you and the lios alfar. Build her a place, a tower of light from which she can reach over the waves to guide us home. We cannot and will not fail.”

“It shall be done, Amairgen Whitebranch, but it will be our gift to her, not a payment of a debt. There is no payment large enough to encompass our gratitude.” And the ethereal being bowed his head to the First Mage and left him to carry out his duty.

And so it was that the night before they sailed, Amairgen and Lisen shared a night under the stars, back in the heart of Pendaren Wood where they had first met. Fireflies swirled around them as they lay in the embrace of passion and desperate love of two souls entwined within each other. The forest bloomed at night with redolent perfumed scent, heady and intoxicating on the greenness of the forest floor. Lying within her arms, with no words or sounds save the rushing of blood pulsing in time with each other hearts he gifted her the Circlet, forged with his love for her.

It blazed, lighting the Grove with moonlight and stars, aurora fire in glittering gleaming beauty as it clothed Lisen with the glory of her own loom-light. And yet it was as nothing to Amairgen for all he could see was the worry in her eyes.

“With this, your love will call us home,” he murmured. “I promise by all the powers earned we will not be separated for long.”

“The sea has death in it, not just for deiena,” Lisen replied holding him tight. “Not for nothing is it filled with tears.”

“You shall be with me,” Amairgen murmured though he knew she would feel his sorrow. “There are many more things we must do together. Who else would argue with me as you do, or fight as fierce as a Dalredian by my side, or challenge me as you do?”

“And who else would see more than this face or form and see the person I could be?” Lisen whispered. “Let us not say farewell, for my soul travels with you and I will not be unconnected from my Mage though all the oceans on the Weavers Loom stand between us.”

“Then I shall greet you every morning when the sunrise and every night you will think of me when the first star, your star appears in the sky,” he said meaning it with a vow a solemn as any taken in the cause of duty.

“With that I will be content,” she replied and then words were silenced by soft lips and tender touches.

So it was Lisen forsook the Wood, the world to wait in the Anor Lisen, overlooking the sea that stretched out like fear before her. And every morning, she watched as the sun rose and felt inside of her the throbbing ache of Amairgen calling to her, and every night when the first star glowed in the sky, she sent her love out to the sky. Her days were filled with writing, writing, writing... All their lore, all the things they had learned in battle, all they had never had time to entrust to quill and parchment. And at night she dreamed, images that flowed to her from the hand that grasped the Whitebranch of her soul. So she saw when they reached Cader Sedat, the Heroes Isle. She saw and felt the mighty battle to break the binding on that most sacred of places and in her dreams the energy flowed from her when Amairgen faltered in the face of horrors they had never known could even exist.

And she felt when they succeeded and their own dead were allowed to sleep once more, harmony rippling out from their deed.

Surely then the dangerous time was past, surely anything could be done now if this had been achieved? Lisen of the Wood rejoiced for her love was coming home to her from battle, weary but whole. So she waited, the Circlet blazing in an echo of her own star as she faced towards where her heart strings tugged and willed them home. All would be well, for if love could sustain life, Amairgen would live forever.

And then one night, she woke with terrible images in her mind. Pain, agony, fear. A dark monstrous shape in the killing sea, a tainted touch, an implacable power unbound by a Dark god in bitter revenge. Amairgen’s voice fading in her ears as salt water choked her throat and filled her lungs even as she struck out, lashed out with all the power she had to bear. Soulmonger in the water and the dawning realisation of what its horrifying purpose was as it strove to consume the lios alfar most of all.

Everything changed in that moment for it was now she faced the consequences of being more than who she had been. The world tilted on its axis as Amairgen marked his foe with the staff, that part of herself, trying to wound it with the essence of earth and sky but too late. Too late.

She could not, she could not reach more for all the strength of her love it would take a God, and she was not that. Soulmonger swallowed them all, and her soul too, lodging in the wound in its head. It was torn from her and she screamed in loss and rage but there was no certainty in war that the good would live and the bad would die. Before her eyes she saw a ship, the sails black and tattered, sailing into the veil of death and her own soul was carried away on the same dark tides.

Carefully, purposefully as mortality settled around her once more, Lisen of the Wood, brightest Thread in the Weavers Loom, took off the Circlet, unbound her hair and wrote with a trembling hand of what she had seen and then, and then the calling was too much.

Her soul was at sea, her love in the maw of the waves and it called her, endlessly, unceasing, a pain and hollowness that was eternal and growing. It was more than grief, for though grief-stricken she would have found a way to make the enemy atone for this perversion of the Weaver’s will, it was the consequence of gifting a part of herself to her mage. The loss consumed who she was, until she could no longer hear the Wood in her heart and mind, or remember why living was important. Her mind was slipping from her and that was terrifying in itself. Lisen knew she would become an empty shell, beautiful but with as much life as a carved toy and it was then she let the call of her soul draw her to the cliff edge, to the swirling sea.

But she knew the skylore, and she knew the magics of the runes and the older, deeper magics of the Woods that demanded sacrifice, so she willed it that if she was to die then she would strike one last blow, even if it went unknown.

And that perhaps was a destiny she had chosen but even as her soul was born away in the salt waves and the lios alfar wept, she and her love Amairgen had struck and marked a great foe and would continue to do so through centuries of waiting for her last gift was to reach to that soulshard and create a binding of her own. As the sea claimed her, the spell was woven to hold the songs of the souls of the betrayed lios alfar and the prey of Soulmonger and save them from complete destruction and hold them to the Light that if they were avenged they would yet reach the Weavers side. And so they sang on, anchored by that last deed, and the black ship sailed with Amairgen's spirit at the helm for she had paid in the old way sacrificing her own life to her greatest fear for that purpose and it was all the brighter deed for the fact that it was never known.

She would be remembered for her beauty and for her Mage, but the Circlet glowed as soft as moonfall with the memory of her Thread in the Loom.

Not even at the last could Lisen of the Wood be less than she had become. The Light against the Dark and the brightest Thread in the Weavers Loom.


End file.
